The My Struggle episodes focused on the four central figures who had been set up as saviors of the world ("Salvator Mundi"), with the finale revealing all had been mistakenly or wrongly chosen.
MSI proved Mulder/Mulder's theories weren't the savior of the world.
MSII proved Scully could but wasn't meant to be the savior of the world.
MSIII proved CSM grandiosely tried but fell short of being the savior of the world.
MSIV proved William (his powers,and his angst) wasn't cut out for or able to be the savior of the world.
But... who is revealed in the final minutes of the show?
(Hint: what does it mean for Scully to become pregnant, despite her age and history of fertility? And what does it mean that she can wield powers in the post-Revival novel?)
Moreover, the finale reveal wasn't a creation of CSM's or Mulder's or Scully's or William's choices or will: it just happened. Serendipity. Fate.
If you're wondering why this sounds familiar, yes, it is a retread of
Amor Fati but with less coherent commitment to established mythology.
The X-Files's Season 9:
Did 20th Century Fox or CC End the Show?
While going through the past, I was struck by how much power
Chris Carter seemed to wield when closing the show.
November 3, 2000:
“I know Fox would love it to be on the air next year, but there are many factors,” Carter said. “David doesn’t have a contract for next year, and I’m sure he’d be looking for a rich deal. I don’t have a contract for next year. Most importantly, I want to make sure I’m working toward something. I don’t want to ever let this show peter out or just die of its own weight. This show has to be good for me to continue, and that’s what I’m working to do this year. If I’m satisfying myself that it can be good, I would certainly consider it.”
January 18, 2002:
The truth about Fox’s “The X-Files” is finally out there: Come May, the series will end, after nine seasons.
Executive producer Chris Carter told Fox programmers on Wednesday that he wants to end the show this season. [...]
January 25, 2002:
Spotnitz also doesn’t see a connection between FOX’s pickup of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon’s science-fiction series “Firefly,” and “X” creator Chris Carter’s subsequent announcement that his show was over. “No, it’s just a coincidence, because the decision really was Chris’, and the timing of it was Chris’. He came to them. He had thought about it over the Christmas vacation. We delivered two really strong episodes at the beginning of January, and the audience wasn’t any bigger. He said, ‘Let’s get out while we’re ahead. We don’t want to limp out.'”
May 17, 2002:
CC: I thought that [Season 9] was a new show that could have built a new audience, but I wasn’t interested in seeing “The X-Files” damaged at all or criticized unfairly, so I decided to call it a day and focus on the upcoming movies.
At first glance, this is at odds with previous, corroborating Ten Thirteen statements, i.e. if CC left, then Fox would continue the show without him. The creation remains with the company, not the creator, after all.
March 31, 1997:
By the new year, Carter was spending almost no time on The X-Files, and it should have come as no surprise when he announced his intention to leave both shows, The X-Files after season five and Millennium after season two (reportedly the most that Fox had promised him). “I think five years is a good length of time to do something,” he said. “I have said to David and Gillian that I just want to do five really good years and then be able to look back and say that we did our best work. Anything past that is gravy to me.” [...]
Although Carter implied that he would prefer for the show to end upon his departure, Fox responded to his announcement by commencing a search for his replacement – after all, stars Duchovny and Anderson are contracted through to the end of season six, and although Fox has already sold the show into record-breaking syndication deals, it has no plans to kill the only series that continues to show growth.
November 3, 1999:
"I don't know what their plans are. But it's their show. They can put it on without any of the principals being involved."
April 22, 2008:
AVC: Lost, a show that’s obviously been influenced by The X-Files, made a big deal about announcing a definitive end point. Was that ever considered for The X-Files?
CC: No, the reason… We went to season five and we did the movie. Actually, at the end of season four, I could have left, and I might have opted to. My contract was up, and I could have left, and it would have been a successful show. But it was clear that Fox was going to—because it was a powerhouse for their schedule and for their network—the show was going to go on, and it would have gone on without me. And I had made a pledge to the actors that I would stay with the show as long as they did. And that kept me going, so there was not an end point imagined, which was a result of the fact that Fox was not going to end that show anytime without a reason to end it. And I think that it’s a luxury for the creators of Lost to be able to have an end point, and to have a network that supports it. I’m sure the network is not happy about it, because it is a business first, and entertainment second. And they get to put one before the other, which is a luxury that I didn’t actually have or imagine.
Be that as it may, these two accounts-- Carter's thin line of creative control and Carter's ability to close The X-Files-- appear contradictory.
Turns out, both are true: CC was able to close the show because 20th Century Fox had lost interest.
January 18, 2002:
Fox executives had been having informal discussions about the show’s future, but Carter pulled the trigger, according to Sandy Grushow, chairman of the Fox TV Entertainment Group.
January 22, 2002:
Carter “had been thinking provisionally about ending the show for a couple of years” because of several “business” reasons, including [D]uchovny’s desire to leave, and Carter’s own contract expiring (he signed a new one for this season).
The Complete X-Files:
"Scary Monsters" features the return of Leila Harrison, who refers the X-Files team to a psychotic young telepath who can create the illusion of giant killer insects. The show was significant for The X-Files cast and crew for another reason during its production; Chris Carter announced that The X-Files would end with this season.
Robert Patrick recalls when he heard the news: "We were halfway through season nine, and Chris came on the set and watched me shoot a scene. And he hadn't done that since the first scene I had shot. And when the scene was over, I said, 'Is everything all right?' And he said, 'Walk with me.' And we walked to my trailer, and in this very calm, Chris Carter way, he said, 'I wanted you to be the first to know, this is it.' I said, 'What do you mean this is it?' And he went, 'This is going to be the end.'"
Patrick was devastated. It was then that he noticed that Fox's new series 24 was being heavily promoted by the network even though its ratings were not significantly better than The X-Files. "I was asking people, 'Boy, it seems like you're spending a lot of money promoting this 24. What's going on with our show?'" Patrick recalls. "I vaguely remember getting the feeling like we had been abandoned by Fox. That's probably one of the reasons why Chris decided not to do it."
In a sordid sort of way, it's probably a good thing The X-Files continued until Season 9: if CC hadn't agreed to come back (via a yearly contract basis, signed after Season 7 and again after Season 8), then the studio would have gone on without him.
On the flip side, however, Frank Spotnitz was planning to helm S9 in Carter's absence--
November 21, 2001:
The X-Files writer-producer Frank Spotnitz told us that he’s not sure if there will be a 10th season of the SF series, but he added that this year’s episodes are being crafted with an eye towards the possibility. “One of the first things this season, before we even knew if [series creator] Chris [Carter] was coming back, was figuring out how the show would work for season nine, and then how it could work for seasons 10 and 11 and beyond if the audience were there,” Spotnitz said in an interview.
What could have been, we'll never know.
CONCLUSION
tl;dr 20th Century Fox lost interest and Chris Carter seized the opportunity to end on a (relative) high note.
Ultimately, the writers and actors were glad CC stayed aboard-- they gave him great testimonials, enthused about his capabilities, and supported him in his endeavors. While fans (myself included) weren't satisfied with the results, there was, perhaps, a bigger picture at play: outlasting or losing to Fox.
On the note of season 7/season of secret sex, why does everyone seem so sure that scully was playing with mulder’s tie in rush? I still can’t see this
Rush's Tie Twirl and Timeline
I can understand that, anon. So, here's the clip!
To prove the tie twirl, I must explain the slight shift from Position A to B.
At the beginning of the clip, Scully is at rest in Position A: parallel to Mulder, shoulders straight across, distance between them.
The shift to Position B begins after she looks down and says, "Mulder...": her right arm moves forward, angling her body towards him, closer in.
While she continues, there is a distinctive rustling of either material-on-material friction or her fingers rubbing material between them.
Her attention remains fixed where her hand is.
Position A is regained after she says, "Please? Just..." and pouts:
her arm snaps abruptly back to her side, leveling her shoulders (and dropping whatever she was fondling.)
When she finishes, "...for me?" we get a glimpse of Mulder's face before Scully switches gears and becomes serious again.
Now, granted, Scully could have been fiddling with Mulder's coat or a button hole or a bunch in his shirt or his hand or her hand (though there isn't an audible skin-on-skin noise) if not his tie, but she was fiddling with something. Otherwise moving her hand forward, keeping it in empty air, then pulling it back only after pleading her case wouldn't make sense.
So, the most plausible explanation would be....
-Timeline: Production Drafts-
Here's a fun little aside I've thought up.
One of the quirks in Rush is its timetable, specifically a date printed on one of the teenager's exam papers (here.) If taken at face value, this would place the episode around Thanksgiving, before New Year's 2000.
After investigating the production dates, I discovered (and will prove) the episode was crafted after Millennium.
Millennium, September 13, 1999:
Rush, September 17, 1999 and Rush, September 24, 1999 respectively:
Which means Millennium's kiss (courtesy of John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz) was written no later than September 17.
Which means Rush was written after the kiss was penned.
Which means Rush was created off in the "after" era.
Couldn't find filming dates of either episode (probably wouldn't matter, regardless), but the on-screen goof can probably be explained by an oversight: Rush was aired December 5, which means a lot of its production was taking place during November (leading up to Thanksgiving.) Some exhausted or misinformed crew member must have accidentally included the wrong detail.
(Besides, timelines were never clear in The X-Files, anyway.)
-Bonus-
Want more content?
You can find a gifset of Scully's insane levels of flirtation (and territoriality) here. And this gifset. And this one. And this. And that.
And Mulder's crack here.
@agent-troi's Rush meta here (including a line from Mulder) and here.
My entrance meta here. @fringephile's thoughts/screenshots here. @scullysbagelbites's thoughts here. @unremarkablehouse's thoughts on Scully's turtleneck (hickies) here and etc. here.
My season of secret sex meta here.
Lastly, this is an open invitation to everyone: include your Rush thoughts in the reblogs or tags below. It's open season. Have at!
Does a list exist somewhere of all the times M&S have held hands? (Bonus if there are screencaps or gifs!) I'm interested in the ratio of Scully vs Mulder initiating it. I suspect it heavily skews toward Scully reaching out first, which for some reason I find really interesting.
@enigmaticxbee has just the list for you: X(-Files) and Os.
What I find interesting in this graph is that Mulder's first two hugs are arguably more functional than personal (saving Scully in Genderbender and leaning on her in Anasazi) compared to his initiation in Paper Clip and more subtle lean in Herrenvolk.
Isn't it telling that his first open hug was to aid his father in Colony or to comfort his partner in Paper Clip, meanwhile his own needs took a backseat until Season 4?
Also, yes anon, I agree with your last point. It's undeniable that Mulder is a rather (very) tactile man; but it's Scully who makes the first "personal" gesture in the pilot. And again in Irresistible. And again in Pusher. And again etc.
Mulder begins reaching out in Season 2 (to his partner, his father, his mother, others) but doesn't bare himself emotionally via contact until (arguably) Herrenvolk.
Wrote a post about the topic here: How Scully Taught Mulder to Hug.
How am I supposed to create a coherent meta if the main writers of
The X-Files have two conflicting theories about Samantha's parentage?
Over 30 years later.
February 5, 1999:
Left unanswered: the burning question of Fox Mulder’s paternity. (Duchovny is going the Star Wars route, assuming CSM is Mulder’s Darth Vader of a father: ”It makes mythological sense.” Carter will only add, ”We haven’t said definitely not. What we have said is that he is definitely Samantha’s father.”)
February 7, 2024:
On whether the CSM was Mulder’s father [at that point]: “that was an idea we had, an argument we had about whether he should be, we just agreed to not commit.” A revealing sentence about how Carter thinks: “Chris would often have ideas he wasn’t going to share until it was time, and we’d realize, oh you were thinking that?” Also, FS always assumed that Samantha is Bill Mulder’s.
Okay - how do we feel about Krycek/Marita. Do we think they actually liked each other, or nah? Is that the fandom projecting, in our horny way (blessed be)?
I think it's more complicated than Mulder and Scully's relationship.
Which isn't a surprise, since both are shades of Dark!Mulder and Dark!Scully: hands-on in the work, but 100% self-interested and
0% sacrificial. They keep a few buttons loose, give in to their desires, and prove why the lead characters don't often indulge in frenetic passions: Krycek loses his evidence, Marita is infected with black oil. (You can't afford distraction in a world that's waiting to destroy you.)
Also, Nick Lea enjoyed that side of Krycek--
June 1998:
Nevertheless, Krycek's comeback in the latest X-Files two-parter – released on video this month as 'File 12: Patient X' – is well worth waiting for. This is mainly because Lea gets to have a steamy, stormy and totally unexpected 'love scene' with Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden), Special Representative to the UN Secretary General.
"The fact that you got to see Krycek actually have a personal slash-sexual encounter with somebody was exciting, because you'd never seen that aspect of the character before there was never any hint of that fire," he says. "It came out of left-field, and I think it surprised a lot of people."
It isn't love. It's loathing and passion, and later shades of disgust and surprise and acceptance. In my opinion, there isn't much love or hate lost between them: they glower, they undress with unrighteous motives, they soften when the world is falling apart. In One Son and Requiem they realize there is no one else left to do what needs to be done except each other. They throw Mulder to the stars and leave Scully bereaved with as little emotion as they toss CSM down the stairs and walk away toward freedom: a mutual selfishness that will split them inevitably if they don't aim for the same goal.
Mulder and Scully, by contrast, place each other above their aims.
They also keep vigilant in a world which wishes to destroy them. They don't shed their clothes in a game of manipulation but choose each other in every other way, and finally in that final way after the world is saved (post-One Son and post-Millennium.) And they can live conscionably, peaceably with their choices (Closure and all things.)
Krycek is a conflicted man: capable of great cruelty but not without a coward's conscience. Marita is a disillusioned woman: one who follows orders yet suffers the consequences of fate. Unlike Diana Fowley, who keeps her hands clean enough to run along CSM's and Mulder's shoulders, Marita ventures into the field and suffers the consequences. And when the Consortium flees to safety, she's left to the mercy of tarnished heroes and antiheroes.
They are two people who have set aside their humanity to save themselves (but lie and say "the world"), and find that the human soul can't bear it. Humanity seeks shreds of reality in unreality: in this case, they cast about for light, sacrifice their bodies, regret, yet have no other shadow of good to call back upon except each other (Requiem.)
It's a more complicated conundrum of fate v. freewill that Mulder and Scully wrangle with: was it chosen for them or did they choose it in some unspoken way?
Bonus
This probably sums them up:
The X-Files Krycek and Marita: "You're My Little Choochie Face"
If you'd like to read more Krycek content, I recommend--
Fics:
"You Don't Know the First Thing About Me"
Chariots of Fire
Personality Typing:
Krycek, an Unstoppable Manipulator (ENTP)
The 1980 trophy on the office shelf with the pregnancy book could have been Mulder's Intramural basketball sports league award. I know a few that give out trophies at the end of the season.
(Referring to @cecilysass's question here.)
I've never heard of that before but anon, you could be onto something.
(After searching around, I think it's more than remotely plausible.)
Hey 👋 just reading your All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium post, and I agree with the S6 timing for the IVF attempts. I never bought into the S7 timeline (I commented that on IG under a video and many people got upset) as the relationship shifted after Amor Fati. I won’t compare haircuts etc as we know this is all retcon
On the topic of retcon, what’s your theory on why CC / 1013 decided to add that IVF story in Per Manum?
I am not really sure how it adds to anything more, other than saying Scully’s pregnancy is a miracle and was deeply desired by both of them
The timelines on IVF / IVF process might have been butchered (and Mulder storing her ova in his pocket is a no-no but nvm), but I believe there was a deeper deliberate intention there, I never figured out what it was and I would love to hear your take on it.
Hey, luckily for everyone, Frank Spotnitz told us! :DDD
April 2001:
The pivotal, if not confusing, mythology episode ‘Per Manum’ used flashbacks to establish the fact that, at some unspecified time in the past, Scully was trying to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization. (Per X-Files canon, Scully’s own abduction back in Season 2 left her barren.) The reasoning for bringing up the in vitro angle at all, Spotnitz explains, was twofold. “One is that [Scully’s infertility] was a thread of The X-Files’ mythology that had never been sewn up. Back in season 4, we saw Mulder with the harvested [ova] that they’d taken from Scully; but we’d never had an opportunity to address it until now. The other reason was that we have this bombshell with Scully’s pregnancy, but we have no emotional context for it. So it felt good to show the audience the back story for Scully and Mulder, leading up to this news that she was indeed pregnant.”
That's Spotnitz for you, always remembering and bringing back the dropped throughlines.
For example: CC originally toyed with the idea of giving Maggie cancer in Season 4, but Frank (jointly with Shiban) recalled the MUFON women and presented Scully's cancer arc instead. (Spotnitz also thought up Scully's pregnancy as early as Season 5, which wasn't acted upon until he and CC closed the mytharc and plotted the road to Requiem.)
As an aside, the brain disease (I remain convinced) was a way to give Mulder a substantive subplot in DD's absence... and was butchered because there was nothing canonically to spring from (unlike the IVF arc-ish, which had its foundation in Season 4.)
Contrast the unplanned nature of Mulder's health crisis (not a sign or symptom in Season 7) with the prominent arc of CSM's blatant decline (from Amor Fati-Requiem) and well.... Poorly done.
A fact Spotnitz also acknowledged--
In the absence of pre-existing context for season 8’s dramatic surprises, the writers relied instead on flashbacks tailored to fit this year’s narrative. “Had I known there would be a season 8, I would have preferred to salt in all of the clues about these flashback episodes last season,” says Spotnitz of how he dealt retroactively with fitting in Mulder’s illness and Scully’s [pregnancy.] “But there really is no way to unravel these mysteries in my mind, and make use of David in the time that he was available to us, without having some flashback episodes.”
